PHP - How to replace special characters for url

Question

I am trying to convert special characters (eg. +, /, &, %) which I will use them for a GET request. I have constructed a

Answer 1

Because all your replacements have a percentage (%) character in them, you have to first replace all the occurrences of % with its equivalent %25. Afterwards you should replace other characters such as space and so on. An when you try to convert back the encoded url to its original state, % character should be the last character that you convert back. Convert back your array in reverse order. use array_reverse() function to reverse the order of elements of $specChars. In other words you have to use two separate functions for encoding and decoding your urls.

The following functions are the ones I have written myself to do the job.

   $arrayChrs = array('%',' ','!');
   $arrayChrs = array('%25', '%20','%21');

 function encodeData($subject)
    { //enode data
    global $arrayCodes;
    global $arrayChrs;
    if (!is_null($arrayChrs) && !is_null($arrayCodes)) {
        $arCnt1 = count($arrayChrs);
        $arCnt2 = count($arrayCodes);
        if ($arCnt2 == $arCnt1) {
            for ($x = 0; $x <= ($arCnt2 - 1); $x++) {
                $code1 = $arrayCodes[$x];
                $char1 = $arrayChrs[$x];
                $code_encoded = utf8_encode($code1);
                $char_encoded = utf8_encode($char1);
                $subject = str_replace($char_encoded, $code_encoded, $subject);

            }
        }
    }

    return $subject;
}

//[end function]




function decodeData($subject)
{ //decode data
    global $arrayCodes;
    global $arrayChrs;
    $outputStr = $subject;
    if (!is_null($arrayChrs) && !is_null($arrayCodes)) {
        $arCnt1 = count($arrayChrs);
        $arCnt2 = count($arrayCodes);
        if ($arCnt2 >= 1 and $arCnt2 == $arCnt1) {
            if ($arCnt2 >= 1) {
                for ($x = ($arCnt2-1); $x >=0; $x--) {
                    $code1 = $arrayCodes[$x];
                    $char1 = $arrayChrs[$x];
                    $code_encoded = utf8_encode($code1);
                    $char_encoded = utf8_encode($char1);
                    $outputStr = str_replace($code_encoded, $char_encoded, $outputStr);
                }

            }


        }

    }
    return $outputStr;
}

//[end function  ]

Notice that one for loop counts elements forward by using $x++, and the other one counts elements in reverse order by using $x--.

Elements in $arrayChrs are replaced by elements in $arrayCodes during encoding. During decoding the reverse replacement takes place.